New 350 room hotel near Swan and Dolphin "The Swan Reserve”

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Is it just me, or is that a pretty ambitious timeline? Fully up and ready for booking in less than 2 years time? It'll be interesting to see their quick progress.

In construction terms, hotels are easy to build. They're essentially identical rectangular boxes stacked on each other. The public spaces will be customized, but it's still not difficult in terms of the actual work.

Given that this is a high-rise building, there will (probably) only be a couple of Central Florida companies able to build the structure. But, once the building is up, the list of sub-contractors who can finish the inside will be lengthy. Installing walls, plumbing, and electrical for hotel rooms isn't specialized work. The same fact holds for things like the restaurants and meeting spaces for this hotel.

The reason why it seems to take forever for Disney to build attractions is that those are one-of-a-kind structures. (Maybe two-of-a-kind if it's a clone from another park...but the actual workers wouldn't be imported to build.) Additionally, attractions must be built with care to ensure guests don't get hurt once operational. The likelihood of guest injury from a poorly-installed sink is low. The same can't be said for a poorly-installed support beam for a roller coaster track (as an example).

For what it's worth: When I worked at Walt Disney World, I asked a theme park operations manager why attractions at Disneyland seemed to be built quicker than in Florida. She said that was due to the fact that there are more companies in Southern California with the specialized ability to build the unique structures when compared to Central Florida. In theory makes sense. Southern California has almost 24 million people; Central Florida has about 8 million.
 
In construction terms, hotels are easy to build. They're essentially identical rectangular boxes stacked on each other. The public spaces will be customized, but it's still not difficult in terms of the actual work.

Given that this is a high-rise building, there will (probably) only be a couple of Central Florida companies able to build the structure. But, once the building is up, the list of sub-contractors who can finish the inside will be lengthy. Installing walls, plumbing, and electrical for hotel rooms isn't specialized work. The same fact holds for things like the restaurants and meeting spaces for this hotel.

The reason why it seems to take forever for Disney to build attractions is that those are one-of-a-kind structures. (Maybe two-of-a-kind if it's a clone from another park...but the actual workers wouldn't be imported to build.) Additionally, attractions must be built with care to ensure guests don't get hurt once operational. The likelihood of guest injury from a poorly-installed sink is low. The same can't be said for a poorly-installed support beam for a roller coaster track (as an example).

For what it's worth: When I worked at Walt Disney World, I asked a theme park operations manager why attractions at Disneyland seemed to be built quicker than in Florida. She said that was due to the fact that there are more companies in Southern California with the specialized ability to build the unique structures when compared to Central Florida. In theory makes sense. Southern California has almost 24 million people; Central Florida has about 8 million.

That makes sense. Just hire the same 4 plumbers to do the same assembly line job floor after floor and it can get done in just a couple of weeks. Not as difficult as customizing unique classrooms, houses, etc.
 
Is it just me, or is that a pretty ambitious timeline? Fully up and ready for booking in less than 2 years time? It'll be interesting to see their quick progress.
As "writerguyfl" said hotels high pretty basic bldg. and at least the rooms themselves are basically cookie-cutter copies of each other. Actually I'm surprised the opening date is that far away from the time construction is beginning. It's not that tall, 14 stories and just barely tall enough to be considered as a high-rise and obviously conference rooms/ballrooms are just big open spaces.
For a comparison they just built a 32 story Omni Hotel here in Louisville in less than 2 years and we have weather conditions that are not as appropriate for bldg. construction compared to Orlando.
 


It's not that tall, 14 stories and just barely tall enough to be considered as a high-rise and obviously conference rooms/ballrooms are just big open spaces.

I wrestled with my word choice. I almost called it a mid-rise building.

For a comparison they just built a 32 story Omni Hotel here in Louisville in less than 2 years and we have weather conditions that are not as appropriate for bldg. construction compared to Orlando.

There are a bunch of high-rises being built within walking distance of my place here in Fort Lauderdale. Most are residential, but one is a dual-branded hotel. It's 24 floors with 323 total rooms and includes a small pool deck and a rooftop lounge space. So, it's reasonably similar to this new 343-room hotel at Disney World.

According to the internet, groundbreaking was in August 2016. It was to take 18 months but ended up being closer to two years. I didn't pay close attention at the time, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that part of the delay was due to damage from Hurricane Irma (Sept. 2017).
 
Thank you for these updates! The height of the tower will be interesting for the overall landscape view from the Swan and Dolphin.
 
I am staying at the Dolphin next week and I am anxious to see how much progress has been made since I was there in early March.
 
I have to say that seeing this in person last week, it is much smaller (in footprint) than I anticipated. They really did sandwich it in that lot.
 
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